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Topic: Kilkenny (Read 17929 times)

Brian Cody lets a smile half-flicker as the name Ger Loughnane is tossed into the conversation. He knew it would come, he knew it must come. We’re in the Pearse Museum in Rathfarnham to launch the Leinster championships, 100 years to the day since the leader of the Rising was executed.

Since then, if you can fathom it, Cody has taken part in 29 championship campaigns as either a player or manager. It will take more than a few words of mischief from Mr Functional Beyond Belief to get Cody ducking and weaving.

“Well I just know how I take Ger – he’s a gas man!” Cody says. “And I enjoy Ger, and I know Ger a long time. And he’ll say whatever . . . he might just throw anything out there just for the sake of throwing it out. Also, he maybe believes what he says as well, and that’s his opinion.

Starting point “It’s a good starting point for any team to be functional, I’d say. And if you ever lose that attribute, you’ll become dysfunctional very, very quickly. Look, I’d have not the slightest concern about what Ger said – at all.” It’s our first time getting an audience with Cody since Loughnane’s bit of merriment on the GAA website a few weeks back so we try to pin him on it. Did he think that in a backhand kind of way, his old college friend might have been paying Kilkenny a compliment?

“Well, you see, I don’t know what he means by it. And again, if we were to concern ourselves with what all the various people say about us, you’d be working overtime trying to figure out why did he say this or who does he think he is?

“We just concentrate on what we’re doing, and that’s it. Ger knows that, and it’s for his fellow pundits and the media and everybody else to discuss the merits or the demerits of what he says . . .

“Look, Ger is a very enjoyable fella. We’ll have a chat about it sometime, maybe he’ll tell me exactly how he thinks. But I wouldn’t think he ever tells anyone what he really thinks, anyway.”

Cody was in Thurles on Sunday for the league final, watching two teams that set themselves up to cancel each other out. It’s always a fool’s errand broaching this sort of thing with Cody – his default setting is to colour himself bemused, as though he were a philistine made to tag along to an outing in the Louvre.

Very tactical “It was a game that was very tactical . . What I feel about both teams; both are terrifically skilful teams. They both have skilful players on the field; I think there were brilliant hurlers out there all the time. I suppose they cancel each other out to a large degree as well and there was a lot of traffic in the middle area of the field . . “But look, that’s the way the game went and next Sunday will be interesting. Will they come up with the same thing again? Will they try something different? Both sets of management teams do think a lot about the way they play and that and it’s going to be very interesting to see what they do.

“That’s the prerogative for everybody in charge of each team; to come up with whatever way you want to play the game and it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens.”

And as for TJ Reid’s suggestion that Kilkenny might need a sweeper come summer?

“I must have a chat with TJ to see what he has in his mind there for that,” smiles Cody. “He’s a shrewd tactician I’d say alright.”

In an interview after the 2009 All-Ireland triumph against Tipperary, which made Kilkenny the first county in 65 years to record a four-in-a-row, Cody was asked – entirely reasonably – by RTÉ’s Marty Morrissey for his views on the controversial late penalty that had turned the match.

The Kilkenny manager replied that you’d be busy if you decided to readjudicate all of the frees in a match. There followed: “Did you think yourself it was a penalty, Marty?”“I wasn’t too sure but it did seem a little bit dodgy in the replay.”“I have no idea, Marty. Did you check all the other frees as well to see were they dodgy? [Uneasy laughter] Maybe you should. Maybe you should.”

“What did you think of the referee overall; do you think he allowed a lot to go?“Marty, please, give me a break. The referee – we’re supposed to say nothing about referees and I make a habit of saying absolutely nothing about referees. Diarmuid Kirwan, I’m certain in my head was going out to be the very best he possibly could be. You seem to have had a problem with him. You tell me.”What we can deduce from this is some striking double standards. When a controversial decision has benefited Kilkenny, Cody rigorously opts to say “absolutely nothing” about the referee beyond that he went out “to be the very best he possibly could be”.When however the controversial call – and for the purposes of the argument I’m saying nothing about the merits of either refereeing decision – adversely affects Kilkenny, it’s alright to launch a swingeing public attack on the match official.

johnneycool

In an interview after the 2009 All-Ireland triumph against Tipperary, which made Kilkenny the first county in 65 years to record a four-in-a-row, Cody was asked – entirely reasonably – by RTÉ’s Marty Morrissey for his views on the controversial late penalty that had turned the match.

The Kilkenny manager replied that you’d be busy if you decided to readjudicate all of the frees in a match. There followed: “Did you think yourself it was a penalty, Marty?”“I wasn’t too sure but it did seem a little bit dodgy in the replay.”“I have no idea, Marty. Did you check all the other frees as well to see were they dodgy? [Uneasy laughter] Maybe you should. Maybe you should.”

“What did you think of the referee overall; do you think he allowed a lot to go?“Marty, please, give me a break. The referee – we’re supposed to say nothing about referees and I make a habit of saying absolutely nothing about referees. Diarmuid Kirwan, I’m certain in my head was going out to be the very best he possibly could be. You seem to have had a problem with him. You tell me.”What we can deduce from this is some striking double standards. When a controversial decision has benefited Kilkenny, Cody rigorously opts to say “absolutely nothing” about the referee beyond that he went out “to be the very best he possibly could be”.When however the controversial call – and for the purposes of the argument I’m saying nothing about the merits of either refereeing decision – adversely affects Kilkenny, it’s alright to launch a swingeing public attack on the match official.

Kilkenny are getting cuter though, their main PR man, Eddie Keher (sometimes DJ or Eddie Brennan) will be wheeled out with a soundbite at the rules or referees who may decree that some of the things Kilkenny get up to are fouls and we'll get the manly angle, let the game flow and so forth, provided someone doesn't go out and best them at that, not for a while yet it may be added!Barry Kelly is deemed unfriendly to KK, whereas Brian Gavin is their go to man!

In an interview after the 2009 All-Ireland triumph against Tipperary, which made Kilkenny the first county in 65 years to record a four-in-a-row, Cody was asked – entirely reasonably – by RTÉ’s Marty Morrissey for his views on the controversial late penalty that had turned the match.

The Kilkenny manager replied that you’d be busy if you decided to readjudicate all of the frees in a match. There followed: “Did you think yourself it was a penalty, Marty?”“I wasn’t too sure but it did seem a little bit dodgy in the replay.”“I have no idea, Marty. Did you check all the other frees as well to see were they dodgy? [Uneasy laughter] Maybe you should. Maybe you should.”

“What did you think of the referee overall; do you think he allowed a lot to go?“Marty, please, give me a break. The referee – we’re supposed to say nothing about referees and I make a habit of saying absolutely nothing about referees. Diarmuid Kirwan, I’m certain in my head was going out to be the very best he possibly could be. You seem to have had a problem with him. You tell me.”What we can deduce from this is some striking double standards. When a controversial decision has benefited Kilkenny, Cody rigorously opts to say “absolutely nothing” about the referee beyond that he went out “to be the very best he possibly could be”.When however the controversial call – and for the purposes of the argument I’m saying nothing about the merits of either refereeing decision – adversely affects Kilkenny, it’s alright to launch a swingeing public attack on the match official.

Kilkenny are getting cuter though, their main PR man, Eddie Keher (sometimes DJ or Eddie Brennan) will be wheeled out with a soundbite at the rules or referees who may decree that some of the things Kilkenny get up to are fouls and we'll get the manly angle, let the game flow and so forth, provided someone doesn't go out and best them at that, not for a while yet it may be added!Barry Kelly is deemed unfriendly to KK, whereas Brian Gavin is their go to man!

They don't like James McGrath eitherHe implements the rules too vigorously

In an interview after the 2009 All-Ireland triumph against Tipperary, which made Kilkenny the first county in 65 years to record a four-in-a-row, Cody was asked – entirely reasonably – by RTÉ’s Marty Morrissey for his views on the controversial late penalty that had turned the match.

The Kilkenny manager replied that you’d be busy if you decided to readjudicate all of the frees in a match. There followed: “Did you think yourself it was a penalty, Marty?”“I wasn’t too sure but it did seem a little bit dodgy in the replay.”“I have no idea, Marty. Did you check all the other frees as well to see were they dodgy? [Uneasy laughter] Maybe you should. Maybe you should.”

“What did you think of the referee overall; do you think he allowed a lot to go?“Marty, please, give me a break. The referee – we’re supposed to say nothing about referees and I make a habit of saying absolutely nothing about referees. Diarmuid Kirwan, I’m certain in my head was going out to be the very best he possibly could be. You seem to have had a problem with him. You tell me.”What we can deduce from this is some striking double standards. When a controversial decision has benefited Kilkenny, Cody rigorously opts to say “absolutely nothing” about the referee beyond that he went out “to be the very best he possibly could be”.When however the controversial call – and for the purposes of the argument I’m saying nothing about the merits of either refereeing decision – adversely affects Kilkenny, it’s alright to launch a swingeing public attack on the match official.

Kilkenny are getting cuter though, their main PR man, Eddie Keher (sometimes DJ or Eddie Brennan) will be wheeled out with a soundbite at the rules or referees who may decree that some of the things Kilkenny get up to are fouls and we'll get the manly angle, let the game flow and so forth, provided someone doesn't go out and best them at that, not for a while yet it may be added!Barry Kelly is deemed unfriendly to KK, whereas Brian Gavin is their go to man!

They don't like James McGrath eitherHe implements the rules too vigorously

And with Kelly and McGrath come the snide remarks about them not being from a "hurling county". And that's not just from Kilkenny.

The Irish Times - Saturday, September 29, 2012\The night Dougal belted out the Rose in Dungannon\

John Hoyne and James Ryall were freewheeling spirits who enjoyed their view from the back seats as Brian Cody drove Kilkenny to glory, writes PM O'SULLIVAN

JAMES RYALL is a natural born storyteller and one of his best involves the time John Hoyne and himself got waylaid by Ulster hospitality in Dungannon.It was January 2003, the Saturday before the Walsh Cup final against Dublin in Parnell Park. It was Ryall’s first start as a Kilkenny senior. Brian Cody had signed off on the trip, instructing them to make the Burlington Hotel for Sunday noon.

Strikingly reminiscent of Spud Murphy, Ewen Bremner’s character in Trainspotting (1996), Ryall snorts as he recalls how his comrade had “only a banger of a car at the time”. Bald front tyres were replaced and the two of them, tight friends as well as Graigue-Ballycallan clubmen, headed away.Up grand and they spun through some drills in the afternoon. Afterwards they were to present medals to youngsters, the usual story, and it stayed standard when Ryall, pulling off his boots, turned to Hoyne and cocked an eye.

Reply came phlegmatic, Dougal to a tee: “We were never going to come up here and not have a few pints”.The nickname hopped courtesy of the Father Ted character. Hoyne, before the bar, has a genius repertoire of gags, mimicry and oneliners and is, as they say, a panic. I have been in his company on such an evening and I wish it could be printed, because Dougal is savage goodnatured. But it cannot, because John Hoyne is a rifle.

That Tyrone night, the same pair ended up in a hall dropped from the sky in the middle of nowhere. The medals were presented.People started lashing down drink in front of them, the Kilkenny lads good enough to come up the day before they had to play Dublin.Pints, shorts, vodka and Red Bull, all the shades of alcohols rainbow.Through the warm blur at the counter, the mid-Ulster accents shouting and carousing, after the hours softened at the edges and started making for the centre, Ryall turned at the sound of an odd accent in the throes of song.

Dougal was up on stage, letting loose The Rose of Mooncoin.“It must have been three or four o’clock in the morning,” Ryall says. “And we didn’t head off any time soon either . . .”Eventually they were deposited in a guesthouse as night crept away.Ryall, wildly ambitious, set his mobile for eight o’clock. Next thing Hoyne was sticking his head in the door and telling him take a look: ‘eleven o’clock!’.

They jumped, heads sticky, realising they would have to ring their manager and come some way clean.Then James Ryall remembered the purchase.Out on the road, John Hoyne rang Brian Cody and told him their front tyres had been slashed, Free State registration and all that. Phenomenal hard to get a garage open on a Sunday morning up here. Burlington is out.

Okay, said Cody, nothing like as severe in private as his public image suggests and probably undeceived in any case. Head straight to Parnell Park. ‘Be as quick as ye can’.They belted down at a ferocious slant and closed in on Donnycarney.“Not a scrap to eat,” Ryall laughs, shaking his head. “Just a bottle of Lucozade between us.”He makes it cinematic, pure point of view:

“We came in heads down, naturally enough. All you could see was a row of Kilkenny socks, togged out.”They got sat, conscious of knowing looks along the wall, got stripped fair quick.Cody was over to Ryall with his jersey, telling him ‘you have it now and you should keep it’ and James Ryall was rummaging in his kitbag, getting as frantic as he ever gets, which is not frantic at all. Then it dawned. Taking off his boots while sussing Dougal’s intentions, he had missed on landing them into the bag and now would have to get them from the car.Kid Adrenalin took over. He sprinted back, barely, to line out. How did it go? “I hurled well,” replies Ryall, still a bit in wonder at that version of himself. “I was substituted near the end, but I must have done enough, because I held my place that year.”

Getting out on the field did not solve John Hoyne’s headache. Cónal Keaney immediately creased him with a shoulder. “Never forgot it,” Hoyne says. Then his distinctive twisted grin: “Just after the throw in. I was on the ground, he had me on the ground and I was looking up at him. I was fecked. And I was saying, to myself, looking up: ‘If you only knew the hardship Ive gone through to get to this match’ . . .”

Stock notions of a robotic Kilkenny panel conceal the beauty of nuance. Personality-wise, the grouping has always been a mosaic rather than a wall of emulsion. Cody has long been canny about dynamics, a believer in personalities who leaven the mix.

Sure enough, Hoyne and Ryall were back-of-the-bus merchants, never taking themselves too seriously, never enthusiasts for gym work. They could self-deprecate for Ireland.Ryall remarks of the draw with Clare in 2004: “A bit of a tennis affair, up and down. I was the free man the first day but not for the replay! They were on about the supply of ball . . .”John Hoyne hangs candid about 2004’s cusp status:“After 2003, Brian Cody had a schoolroom of a panel. (Charlie) Carter and(Brian) McEvoy were gone. The manager had won three All-Irelands.“He had total control of the situation, the foundation of everything he achieved since. And you can only get that control, in Kilkenny, through winning.”The moral of the Dungannon story is slanted but clear, a measure of indiscipline bespeaking iron focus from sliver start.There was never anything but total respect for management. James Ryall’s open, alert face is a key to turn. He is testing me out, whether I can see beyond the superficial hint of controversy.2004 chimes with 2012, as Ryall summarises:“The way you get caught out, and the way Kilkenny got caught out against Wexford in ’04, is that it’s hard to get yourself right for every game.“Everyone was worrying Dublin were coming with a woeful drive. There was big fear in Portlaoise. And then Kilkenny annihilated them. Then the whole county: ‘Ah, they’ll win the Leinster Final . . .’ You’d never be shut off from that as a player. A big performance nearly always means a lull.”Tony Wall wrote in Hurling[ (1965), his still fresh monograph on the most beautiful game:“The high ball into the full-forward line from centre field or half forward is practically useless”.John Hoyne’s conversation is dotted with references to the many GAA books he has read but he has no need to consult Wall. This emphasis is part of his hurling DNA, one he tried to pass on via a six-year stint with the juveniles of Graigue-Ballycallan.Back in the early 2000s, there was a lazy view of him as a Didier Deschamps figure, a mere hewer of ash. I never agreed. Even now, his recollections are flecked with frustration about an absolute “win your own ball” philosophy, a disregard of finesse about deliveries forward.“Dougal would be messing and the big gallery,” Noel Hickey once said to me. “Then wed go into a team meeting, and start talking hurling, and he’d be the smartest of us all.”“My own form was never consistent enough to be complaining about anything,” Hoyne says, not quite grinning this time. Although retired by the time Cha Fitzpatrick became a midfielder, he loved him: “Cha isn’t just low ball in the ordinary way. He was able to lob it in, a low lob, if you like, into a space.”Hoyne rounds out matters: “Tommy Walsh crossing the ball to Henry Shefflin against Tipp last year probably wasn’t a training ground drill. Can’t say for certain, now I’m gone, but that’s what I’d think.“Cody might have picked Shefflin at 12 for a particular reason, that he might win more ball in one spot. But it wouldn’t have been ‘feed Henry, feed Henry, feed Henry’.“Tommy comes and he’s sweeping the ball that way, and Henry’s winning it. So it’s more a case: ‘Give him another one, give him another one. You go with the flow on the day. Cody lets us at it. And the flow comes alive on the day.”Hoyne instances the Cork puck out in the first half of the 2004 All-Ireland final:“Cody hardly spoke beforehand about Cusack’s puck outs, did he?” Ryall nods. “But everyone knew,” Hoyne continues. “We’d all watched the Munster championship, wing forwards coming out and all that.“We knew what to do: block it out, stand up tall. Nothing went through in the first half. But the wides killed us . . .”Ryall picks it up: “Beforehand, it’s not a matter of Cody saying: ‘This is how the game is going to go’. There’s no big science behind it.“Theres no massive science with Kilkenny. And maybe that was what was half lacking the last day against Galway . . .”Hoyne cuts in: “It was the difference between the first half against Tipp last year and the draw. With Tipp, it was six positions and six positions: six pairs, like an Under 14 match, everyone in their exact position. Against Tipp, all the Kilkenny forwards were on the ball early, Eoin Larkin nearly in for a goal . . . So Anthony Cunningham did his homework.“When Kilkenny play six-on-six, you’d say: ‘Maybe hit the ball in this way or that way’. But, with Galway now, it’s hard to have a method for the forwards.”They are alike firm on how use of possession must improve for the replay.Hoyne notes: “There was a lot of silly stuff going on around the half-back line: on the swivel and boom, up in the air. Eoin Larkin was crippled. He had his own man and a man in front of him, waiting for the breaking ball.“The same with Colin Fennelly, the one Johnny Coen caught behind him . . . walloped up in the air. Colin needs ball in front of him.”Ryall offers the yang of a defender’s perspective:“An awful lot of the Kilkenny clearances the last day came from around the 21-yard line. What was drilled into me was to try and clear from high up the field. Work it out to between half-back and midfield, if you can.“Or make sure youre intercepting in the right place. Look at Tommy (Walsh) last September: he’s nearly out in midfield when he’s crossing those balls to Henry.”Hoyne adds: “I think the two managers’ heads must be wrecked with tactics . . . Kilkenny probably have more to worry about, because Galway know the Kilkenny backs will mark, man on man.”Ryall spools back to sport’s foundation: talents lunge into genius. “I wonder would Galway have the balls to go out and play a proper XV,” he asks. “Play Joe Canning full forward and leave him there for the hour.“Look at the football: Michael Murphy, like. Started full forward and won the game for Donegal. Say what you like but his goal was pure brilliance. Then (Jim) McGuinness took him out of it . . .“The second goal was pure luck. Came off the upright and yer man missed the drop. If Donegal hadn’t got that second goal, Mayo could have won that All-Ireland with Michael Murphy off out the field, after he did such damage in there off the first ball . . . It’s hard to mark pure brilliance.”It is getting late and we have talked ourselves out. Sunday awaits, the skirl of tactics and talent.John Hoyne offers one last grin:“Make sure you say I was an awful loss when I retired, that we’d have won the five-in-a-row, not just the four-in-a-row, if I’d stayed on after ’05 . . .!”James Ryall looks over, smiles and sings dumb.

2014When Cody took over as Kilkenny boss , Kerry had won 31 All-Irelands to the Cats’ 25. The Kingdom were out on their own. Now, it is possible that Kilkenny could become the most successful GAA county in the history of the association in a mere three seasons’ time. You can bet they have their eye on that. And the most ominous statistics concerning Kerry and Kilkenny are not the titles they won. Kerry have also finished runners-up on 21 All-Ireland final days and Kilkenny on 25. Just imagine how many they might have won by now.

Id be pretty sure Cody is just interested in putting one foot in front of the other (so to speak) and seeing where it takes them. What manager would ever set meaningless goals as "becoming the most successful GAA county in the history of the association"?....pulllleeeasse

At around 7pm last Saturday evening, Tipperary manager Eamonn O’Shea gave one of the great Irish sporting valedictories. They should stick it on the Leaving Certificate course but the printed word could never do it justice; you need to hear the words as they were spoken.

He was composed but it was plain that the emotion of the match and the crushing disappointment was still flooding through his veins. He spoke with moving honesty about the team and his players as people, rationalising defeat even as he absorbed its pain and daring to admit the one thing that he couldn’t admit during the season: that for him, the game of hurling exists on a slightly higher plane than the mere result.“I do think that there are more important things and there are men down there who . . . didn’t flinch when things didn’t go their way and yet the team kept going. That is my understanding of sport. But when Tipp play now, we keep playing until it is no longer possible.”

Kilkenny manager Brian Cody’s pointed criticism of the referee in the drawn final has drawn much negative publicity for the timing as much as anything. Cody was invited to comment in the press room immediately after the drawn match and held his counsel. It may have been that his conviction of the injustice of that late free hardened when he went home to watch the replay. Sport is all about perspective and Cody’s is intrinsically hard-wired to protect the interests of Kilkenny hurling. Should he, in the interests of decorum and all that, have kept his counsel on Monday? Probably. But could he, in his own mind, do that? Clearly not.It takes some nerve to win the Walsh Cup, the National League, the Leinster and All-Ireland Championship and then emerge from the victory banquet filled with a sense of grievance.

BC: “We had injuries during the year as well but stuff evens itself out. I suppose last year we were coming off winning a couple of All-Irelands previous to that and drawn one as well. We actually won the league last year. We won the league without ever flowing, we weren’t flowing, weren’t playing like we’re capable of playing. We were stuck in a gear that we never got out of. Our genuineness, our spirit, got us over the line against Tipperary. We had a massive game against Waterford and a massive game in Thurles as well. The fundamentals were spot on, the spirit and genuineness, they were there and they have always been there. The spark never ignited. This year we were absolutely certain even though, you know, our spirit was questioned in the last couple of weeks. I’m glad it was. It’s good. It was rubbish. It was in the newspapers by some of our own geniuses as well.” Q: Within Kilkenny? BC: “Yeah, by former greats or so-called greats, so-called greats, yeah [repeats under his breath] and they felt that there might be a bit of disharmony in the camp because they wanted to pick the team. We do what we like with the team, because we pick the team, we are in charge. And to question our spirit is rubbish. ......Also, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, [repeated] they were handed an opportunity [by referee Barry Kelly] with the last puck of the game the last day in the wrong to win the game. You are nodding your head now, so you agree. They were handed an opportunity by a complete wrong decision. We didn’t speak about it the last day but it was criminal what was done the last day. And people can say that I am whingeing and moaning all they like but I am telling the truth here.”

Q: Did you think it was a free the other way?

BC: “If he had said ‘play on’ I would have said fair enough. I could say maybe it might have been a free for us. If the ball broke and they put it over the bar fair enough but you don’t hand a team a free puck and say, ‘lads, there you go’. It was like that.”

Q: Would you consider he has previous with Kilkenny after Jackie Tyrrell free in 2012 final and Henry Shefflin’s red card last year?

BC: “Of course he has. Of course he has. Now you have your story! Keep it simple lads now right